


Davetalks

by Arrghus



Category: Homestuck, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Babbling, Daddy Long Legs, Discussion, Gen, Giant feet, Talking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 07:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11054154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrghus/pseuds/Arrghus
Summary: In the dream, Homura is faced with her grief. But a stranger comes to her aid.





	1. Eight hours

In the dream, Homura was falling. A lattice of black on blue rushed by her, in its corners, she could glimpse a thousand failures. Charlotte. Elsa Marie. Oktavia. Beyond them all, Walpurgis marched, and towering even over her, most omnipresent of them all, was Kriemhild, that thing she could never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever allow to pass but had.

The lines opened. Kriemhild stood before her. Its massive form, she had never seen it clearly but now it seemed so lusciously detailed, a thousand thin stalking legs settling down onto the earth with surprising lightness, moving in discordant unison; a shimmering, invisible barrier of such force that it seemed to dissolve the air around it in preparation for whatever the witch was planning. And, atop it all, a woman's body, formed from string, yet so natural and lifelike that even from this distance, she could pick out the features of her oldest, closest friend.

The ground seemed to be thinning out, somehow, not flattening by normal means, but somehow losing in dimension nonetheless, becoming nothing but a symbol of itself as Kriemhild's labyrinth slowly began to swallow up the land. The hated incubator appeared to her left, speaking its empty riddles.

"damn you got some scaryass dreams headband girl what is that like some kind of sewing monster or whatever"

Homura turned around. A stranger in red was approaching. He seemed to spare her a glance, it was hard to tell with his gundamesque sunglasses, but the bulk of his attention was focused on Kriemhild. "What? Who are you?" she croaked out. It was very unprofessional but he was very surprising showing up like that.

"oh right sorry hi im dave dave strider im like a wanderer guy out here which i guess is in my name which is weird anyway i was out there in the ring and i saw your bubble and i went on in was that rude its kinda hard to knock on a soap bubble"

Homura blinked, then composed herself. She wasn't very used anymore to not being in control, not knowing more than those around her about everything going on. This, however... Dreams, as far as she knew, were made up of familiar things, things already seen, and she had never seen this stranger nor his absurd hoodie before. "Akemi Homura. What is a bubble?"

"this whole thing is a bubble its like a big ball of dreamstuff covered in soap for some reason ask my sister or maybe mom i mean roxy sometime i dont know why theres soap but anyway theyre like, floating in the void and full of dead people and people dreaming like you and wait shit is that big thing supposed to do that"

Homura tossed herself aside and felt Kriemhild's massive black leg slam down into the ground next to her, crushing the incubator. The next moment the stranger was some feet above her and the black pillar toppled. Above her, the rest of the leg hung in the air, neatly cut all the way through. "Kriemhild. We should run." without thinking, Homura stopped time and leapt four or five big steps before restarting, making sure the stranger saw her before stopping again and leaping ahead. Nevertheless, he kept good pace, leaping in a manner similar to her own and floating long stretches through some unknown power. Without her time stop, she wasn't sure she was even faster than him.

As they ran, the ground shifted beneath them, turning from desolate ruin to an alien, fiery hellscape of metal and lava. The stranger pointed to a platform with a hidden alcove and a moment later, they'd hidden themselves neatly in the little hideaway.

"Is this hell?" Homura asked as they catched their breath.

"wow what"

"The fire and brimstone, and the giant witch that wants to kill us? Is this hell?"

"no holy shit its not hell its just a nightmare you had a bad dream and then i came in with my memories and brought some of my nightmares with me this is just a place i spent some time at that sucked and was awful thats all its not literally hell youre not even dead i think"

"Oh." It seemed almost a disappointment, but then the sight of Kriemhild always brought out the worst in her. Her biggest mistake, which she'd sworn never to repeat. "Then if I am your host I apologize for the inconvenience."

They sat in silence for a time.

"what is that anyway i mean the big leggy thign like is it just the daddy of all daddy long legs like the big daddy man of long legs did you squish a fake spider once and its come back to haunt you now is what im saying"

"Kriemhild. A witch. She emerged from... a friend." The words were heavy. She kept herself grounded, reminded herself why she was fighting, but the words were heavy.

"hold on thats a person im not sure im getting all the terminology here witch means something else where im from but youre saying that the giant fake spider monster is actually like a girl whos just shaped like a monster or something"

The space they were in was hot. Hot and clammy. Some sort of vapor rose from the lava and stuck to her skin for a moment before being blown away by a chance gust of hot air. The words were on her lips. Far behind, she heard the slow, methodical steps of Ma... of Kriemhild approaching. A deep fizz, as something massive sunk into the lava. She tried to say something, anything, about witches, about her quest, about time travel, about her failu... setback. Setback. Far in the distance, she spotted another shape, a purple sphere, half-sunk into the lava, disguised by the heat shimmers and smog. No matter how she tried to speak, nothing left her mouth.

"oh ok you dont have to say anything im getting the feeling youre carrying something heavy anyway so ima just do the thing i do where i talk and talk and give you a moment to catch your breath  
so anyway homugirl i heard through the grapevine that you think this place with the fire and stuff might be hell does that make you christian or somethin thats a little surprising  
shit was that racist i feel like that was maybe a little racist of me im not really trying to be racist honestly im just glad to meet someone with like a religion that makes sense and isnt ridiculous  
like did you know i legit spent three years on a meteor flying through space together with a guy who believed in clowns like legit just straight up he worshipped these terrible clowns who were also singers where i came from for some reason i dont totally get freaked him the fuck out when he found out though i think in the long run maybe he ended up deciding this other totally evil guy was actually his clown god and turned into sort of an enemy  
dunno most of that was stuff i wasnt exactly there for cause i ended up sacrificing myself to save a girl from two dogs who loved her but she was already dead anyway it was kind of a bummer"

Homura found herself tittering. It wasn't very collected of her but she couldn't really help herself. "Your Japanese is very good." she said in as collected a fashion as she could.

"thanks i learned from this girl i hung out with for a while after i uh died she was nice ok she wasnt actually that nice she was kind of an asshole but we had fun together anyway uh not in that way though  
wait shit why am i correcting myself you dont even know any damaras so you wouldnt know what shes like anyway"

The fizzing footsteps of Kriemhild were close now. This was how the dream went. The reckoning could not be postponed indefinitely, it seemed. "I think it's time now. It was nice to meet you." she stood up and faced down the mountain of a witch.

"yo wait you dont have to do this like theres plenty of places left to run to or i think i got it in me to fight maybe one monster today even though i kinda really dont want to"

Homura leapt up from the space she was in, landing in the dead center of the grand black disk. "Thanks, but I have to go now." the blackness of Kriemhild's foot loomed over her for a moment and then everything vanished for a moment.

Waking up, Homura stretched her arms and checked the alarm clock. Huh, a full eight hours. Was a while ago that that had happened last. Felt good.


	2. It can only be called love

In the dream, Homura fell.

Oh, the Kriemlich dream again. The ruined city loomed large in the shadow of the massive witch. Homura watched it move through the darkness of its own shadow, an enormity that was yet so very nimble, like a mass of swinging ropes or an overgrown octopus.

"so hey odd question but do you know anyone named rose"  
Strider was sitting behind her, his big red hood up and a cape she hadn't really seen before wrapped around his hoodie like an extra blanket. He looked ridiculous, even before you took into account the things he was saying.  
"sorry but like ive met a lot of sort of reserved standoffish girls kind of wrapped up and all kinds of entangled with people named rose for some reason wait shit what would rose even be in japanese help me out here homugirl wait shit i mean... akemi-chan is that how you say that i uh don't know that much about the uh nicer language stuff like i said the person who taught me most of my japanese was a bit of an asshole"

Homura tried to interject, to say something like "Hi." or "How are you?" but before Strider's... volume all she could get out was "Where did you come from?"

"i didnt come from nowhere ive been hanging out here for a while since you left by stomping before just like chilling and stuff under the giant fake spider dad monster its just like a thing you do"

"Just.. waiting? For what?"

"dunno really just waiting i guess waiting for the dad monster to go away or you to come back or even for me to change my mind and do something else really turns out number two of those three things happened first which goes to show how patient i and also giant monsters can be not even planet fucking jupiter could move us from our everlasting staring contest or i guess it would be a staring contest if that thing had eyes actually maybe it does have eyes i dont know"

"I don't think it has eyes. Witches often don't." Homura eyed the snaking threads slowly orienting themselves as the witch picked up her presence. "Their senses are more esoteric. Magic-based."

"magic got it cant win a staring contest with magic hey is it getting closer" a hundred tons of deceptively fast witch legs snaked their way toward Homura and Strider, preceded by a sudden breeze and leaving a wake of splintered clouds in their wake. 

As her conscious mind took in the scene, Homura's hands were already moving, locking her shield and everything else in place. She leapt backwards some ten meters before turning around and spotting the now-familiar spires of Strider's hellscape. Restarting time to shout her position to Strider, Homura pushed hard against the rocky ruins of her broken hometown, sending dust and cracked asphalt flying as she leapt toward the relative safety of the lava land.

A few moments later, she and Strider were sitting comfortably on the flat roof of a mysterious little cubic concrete cottage, their legs dangling over the edge. Behind them, an enormous fan hummed, in front, they watched Kriemhild's slow approach.

"so like are those things normal where you come from because holy shit is that a scary mother fucker" for the last few words Strider slipped back into English, but Homura knew enough from school to guess at what he'd meant. New profanities had always spread around the schoolyard like fire.

"Witches are common. That kind of witch isn't. A witch is born from a magical girl who loses the hope in her heart and falls to despair. The more powerful the magical girl, the bigger the witch. And... the girl who became Kriemhild was incredibly powerful. The strongest ever, I think. She'd have to be, I can't imagine the world surviving past another of her."

They sat in silence for a bit after that. Even Kriemhild seemed to have slowed down its approach; its steps were careful and methodical, avoiding the lava best they could, and the main body seemed to be bobbing left and right like the head of a particularly massive owl. Homura couldn't quite remember why it was owls did that.

"how did it survive the first"

Steel inside. Steel like her shield. She had to be hard as steel if she were ever to hope to save Madoka. "It didn't. I'm a time traveler. When Kriemhild happened, I just went back in time. She only exists in my memories and... nightmares now."

"shit"

"thats a bad thing to have happened to you"

"you want a hug"

A hug? Homura felt her cheeks redden. "It... you're a boy I'm a girl we barely know each other it... it wouldn't be proper" her arms almost flew up from her legs and started gesticulating as quickly as she was talking before she restrained herself, forcing her hands and eyes down into her lap. "I'm... I don't like you that way."

"no thats ok i just thought i should ask but didnt think how hugs maybe mean different things where youre from actually they mean different things where im from too this was a stupid idea oh shit" Strider suddenly stopped and jumped off the ledge into the air. After realizing he wasn't falling into the lava, Homura followed where he was looking.

Whatever lethargy had been holding Kriemhild back before was now completely gone. Buildings and enormous globs of lava flew in all directions as the massive, shapeless witch barreled toward them. Homura stopped time and stumbled back. Her knees were shaking. Even frozen, the sight of a charging Kriemhild was just about the most terrifying thing she'd ever seen. The larger witches tended to be a lot slower than the small ones, relying on their familiars for tasks needing speed. That Kriemhild, a witch the incubator had noted as strong enough to end the world in ten days, could move with such speed... terrifying. 

Homura was frozen to the spot as time resumed. Krimhild's movement seemed inexorable, but as Homura looked, she seemed to be turning, ever so slightly, adjusting course toward... Strider. The boy was flying freely now, moving even faster than she'd seen him do before, and Kriemhild was aiming for him, not Homura.

"It can only be called love." a woman's voice said somewhere behind her.

Homura turned her head sharply. Some way up the radio tower in the corner of the building sat a woman unlike any Homura had ever seen. Her skin was grey like ash, her lips and eyelashes a sharp red, her eyes pure white, and atop her head sat a pair of great, curved horns. In spite of the situation, in spite of herself, Homura's heart skipped a beat. "Who are you?"

"I am Megido Damara, the Witch of Time." the stranger said, brushing her hair out of her face. "Who are you?"

"Akemi Homura." Homura stood up and nervously tugged at her clothes. "How long have you..."

"Been sitting here? A while. Not long. I enjoy eavesdropping. It lets me see people's true faces. I'm not a good person, Akemi. I'm not very good at all. To the business at hand." Megido raised a hand and pointed out over the sea of lava, where Kriemhild was still chasing after Strider. "That creature. You said she hatched from a magical girl? Your friend?" Megido looked briefly at Homura's face, but didn't bother to wait for an answer. "I was watching her while I was eavesdropping, and I think I know why she's here, and what drives her."

"Is that a power of yours?" Homura watched Megido, a little careful now. The woman's curt demeanor, her apparent calm in such a horrid situation, her sheer height... in her time as a magical girl, Homura had learned not to trust grownups with magical matters, but she'd never met someone who was both magical and grown up. It was exhilarating, and also a little scary.

Megido laughed, a high, sharp noise. "Not a power. Call it experience. Now, you mentioned time travel? No need to be coy, we're all time travelers here, even Strider over there. Now, the thing you might not know, is this place? This place is where timelines come to die. Whenever a timeline ends, whether due to time travel or otherwise, the people in it, or some of them at least, end up here, reincarnated by the power of the dreambubbles. So I don't think that's a memory, I think that really is your friend. What was her name again?"

"Ma- Madoka. Kaname Madoka. But she's dead. The witch, Kriemhild Gretchen took her over." everything that had happened, everything she'd been doing for so long, it all threatened to spill out standing next to this woman.

"Kaname Madoka. A fine name. Good matesprit material, probably. Anyway, I'm quite certain that is Kriemhild and I'm quite certain I know why she's suddenly attacking Strider. It's for you, Akemi. Or, not to help you. To possess you. To own you. That desire, it can only be called love. She watched from afar when you and Strider were talking, eavesdropping not unlike how I did, and when you blushed, when you showed the slightest sign that might be misinterpreted as interest on your part, she struck out in rage. I've been there. Well, I had better reasons for what I did. Then again what I did was worse." Damara's lips curved in a cruel smile.

Homura's head swam. That was Kriemhild? The real one? And she wanted... her? To possess her? She sat down again.

"Who knows how long she's been here?" Megido sat up from her position in the tower, and then her feet softly left the iron grid, floating freely through the air. In her hands, she suddenly held a pair of wands, covered in some sort of multicolored vapor. "Going by your reactions, I'm guessing this isn't normally how your 'witches' act, but time here can change you sometimes."

"Why... why are you helping me?" Homura croaked.

Megido stopped for a moment. "I guess I'm trying to be nicer than I used to be. That, and you remind me of me."

"I do?"

"Yep. We're both complete idiots, especially where love is concerned. I'm going to send you to another dream now, a more normal one. When you come back, I might have results for you." Megido raised a hand, and Homura's mind went blank with the colors from her wand.


	3. Routine

Day one. Homura opened her eyes, sat up. The routine was comforting. The routine was calming. Stand up, walk to mirror, undo pigtails. Why did past Homura ever decide to sleep with her pigtails in anyway? That question, too, routine. Ritual. Don't think about what just happened. There will be time to strategize later. There is always time to strategize later. Time travel means everything goes into rote memory eventually. Including not thinking.

Homura blinked. The mirror was empty, showing only her reflection. She could've sworn... she could've sworn she saw something red.

No matter. Untangle hair. Routine. Every tangle identical to last time. Calming. Untangle. Untangle. Untangle.

Find Madoka. Find the rest. Explain details of nature of magical girls, and of coming events. Not all details, explaining all details leads to failure state. Some details, carefully selected. Promote readiness, avoid strife.

Clean up witches. Not all witches, cleaning all witches leaves other girls bored and unprepared for coming events. Some witches, carefully selected. Promote readiness, avoid loss of life where possible.

Unexpected chain reaction, Sayaka dead, resulting negative emotions lead to spiraling strife. Contain, control, try to appeal to camraderie and danger at hand.

Failure. Perceived as cold, emotionless. Strife continues to spiral out of control.

Failure. Mami gone into mother hen mode, prevents all attempts at approach.

Failure. Madoka...

Day one. Homura opened her eyes, sat up. The routine was comforting. The routine was calming. Stand up, walk to mirror, undo pigtails. Why did past Homura ever decide to sleep with her pigtails in anyway? Such a stupid move. Ritual. Don't think about what just happened. There will be time to strategize later. There is always time to strategize later. Everything goes into rote memory eventually. Including not thinking.

Homura blinked. The thing in the mirror had been there again, and again it had vanished when she blinked. She'd half-expected it this time, though. It wasn't just a smear, it was writing. She'd caught a single letter, a "mu" written in shaky hiragana, in what appeared to be... blood? Odd.

Noises from the neighbours. Behind schedule. Untangle hair. Untangle hair. Every tangle identical to last time. Calming. Untangle. Untangle. What was that writing? A message? Untangle.

Find Madoka. Find the rest. Explain details of nature of magical girls, and of coming events. Not all details, explaining all details leads to failure state. Some details, carefully selected. Promote readiness, avoid strife.

Break into hospital at night, look at mirror. Nothing. Look at stalls opposite mirror. Nothing.

Clean up witches. Not all witches, cleaning all witches leaves other girls bored and unprepared for coming events. Some witches, carefully selected. Destroy one that killed Sayaka last time. Promote readiness, avoid loss of life where possible.

Strife between Mami and Kyoko. Mami suspects not telling whole truth, Kyoko acts protective. Unfortunate. Try to clear up. Make effort to be warmer.

Failure. Still perceived as cold. Difficult to work around.

Failure. Madoka...

Day one. Homura opened her eyes, sat up. Sudden thought. Move directly to mirror, without taking time to establish routine first. Risky. Do it anyway.

Homura looked at the mirror, very careful not to blink. Message was simple, yet confusing. "Homura help me". Colour was not blood, as she'd thought, but something deeper. Something darker. A colour she could almost remember...

Megido! Megido Damara. The woman from her dream. With the lips and the skin and the horns. With the wands and the promises. Homura had thought a lot more about Megido than she liked to admit, even in private. It wasn't... Catholic, to think like that. It wasn't right.

"Homura help me" Homura intoned as the letters vanished quietly, just like last time. She put a hand against the mirror. Solid glass. Her fingerprints stained it now. She waited for a moment. The fingerprints remained on the glass. Obviously. She wasn't sure what she'd been thinking.

Find Madoka. Find the rest. Hair a mess. Embarrassing. Explain details of nature of magical girls, and of coming events. Some details, not others. Megido's black hair. What? Busy, banish thought. Try to promote readiness, avoid strife.

She couldn't really work around it. She couldn't even think around it. The idea that Megido was out there, somewhere, needing her...

There was only one place where she could hope to find her. That night, Homura returned to her room, put out the lights, and lay down in bed.

Failure.

Failure.

Too many thoughts, swirling in her head. She was abandoning her friends, doing this. She was abandoning Madoka.

Failure.

It was always hard, stopping. It was always hard.

It was always hard.

.


End file.
